


Mother and Child

by jalendavi_lady



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-08
Updated: 2010-06-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:20:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jalendavi_lady/pseuds/jalendavi_lady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young mother thinks of how different her life is than she thought it would be.</p><p>Deathly Hallows spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother and Child

She sat by the window, rocking in her chair as the sun rose.

This was a far cry from the dreams she had gently nursed in her mind as a young girl, this tenement road with the drab brick walls and sooty skies.

There had been tales of carriages drawn by unicorns, or by horses so white they shone as their hooves hit the ground like little gongs. There had been laughing with the girls in her year about dashing young men and gossip about the conclusions of late-night duels in the hallways and on the stairwells.

Then, there had been terror.

She was all right, of course. She was always going to have been all right, for after all the entire incident had not been haphazard. Despite what anyone said about the big-boned boy from outside her House, she knew more than what she'd let on.

After all, the scariest thing in the school wasn't the legendary monster beneath the school, the things swimming in the lake, or even anything rumored to have ever subsisted on the lint beneath Hagrid's bed up in Gryffindor tower. At least not to her, anyway, although Avery seemed to have a very real fear the squid was going to find a way through the Slytherin common room window one day and have him for breakfast. By the time he had left Hogwarts, she had practically believed the squid must have legilimency capabilities, for it had only come anywhere near the windows when Avery was there looking for it.

No, the scariest thing at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry lived on the boy's hall of the Slytherin House complex under the lake. Or had, until he had taken his NEWTs and left on the train for the real world with the rest of his class the year she had sat her OWLs. He'd taken Avery with him, and good riddance.

There was never anything precisely wrong, nothing she could have taken to the headmaster and certainly nothing Professor Slughorn would have taken seriously against his prize scholar. Only a word here and there, a smirk at the wrong moment, insults phrased as compliments...

And then there were the little accidents. The day the girls in Ravenclaw found their hair potions replaced with one for inducing temporary baldness. The incident with the Hufflepuff Muggle-born's pet cat, and the poor thing had never been right since. Owls missing flight feathers and not being able to point out who had done it afterwards. A thousand little cruel things that added up to one big cruel thing.

He should not have had the following he had, from the first day of his third year onward. There had to be a bloody big reason for pureblood prefects with _Nature's Nobility_ memorized to be taking advice from and offering favors to a 13-year-old halfblood of unknown magical parentage. He could have been the child of a Muggle-born Gryffindor witch who couldn't even get a broom off the ground for all they knew, and they were following him.

Riddle had certainly been a riddle.

She sighed.

But that was over now. He had too big of an attitude to become a professor, particularly since _The Daily Prophet_ had declared Dumbledore's appointment as new headmaster a few years ago. Professor Dumbledore had never seemed to accept any of Riddle's little explanations. Even though he had been head of Gryffindor House, she had an appreciation for his level head. And he certainly had been a strong Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

There was no way the Ministry would be taking Riddle in. Same attitude problem, and there was no way anyone rough and savvy enough to take the position of Minister of Magic and keep it was going to bow to an inexperienced boy who always did just enough to be impressive.

She had thought she'd seen him leaving Knockturn Alley the last time she had been in London. It would serve him right if he had been forced to do shop work waiting on other people, it really would.

That day had been months ago. A year, nearly to the day if she and Tobias hadn't forgotten to rip the page off the calendar yesterday.

She had wanted some things for the baby and the birth, and since Tobias wanted nothing to do with the Wizarding world she had gone alone before she started properly showing. Besides, there was no way Eileen Prince Snape was going to buy pre-made potions when she had an O on her Potions NEWT, even if it wouldn't have made her owl-order medical potion business look bad to be seen buying them. She could order most of the supplies for that by owl--most pain potions used basic ingredients but there were far too many people who just could not make a reliably effective one with their own cauldron and stirring rod--but what she needed then had been more controlled by the Ministry.

She might have married a Muggle, but that did not mean she was not still proud of what she was.

She had run into Mrs. Black in Diagon Alley, just as she passed Flourish & Botts. Mrs. Black, because the poor girl was so proud of the marriage she had achieved that she no longer cared for either half of her birth name. She had always seemed the fragile sort.

The three Black daughters were nothing like the fragile pureblood flower their mother had seemed: and to have had three daughters in such a short time it appeared that it had only been a seeming after all. All of seven to ten years old, they had been lined up in height order behind their mother.

Eileen had almost heard the whispering as she walked past in the summer air. And then she heard the familiar spat invective of "Blood traitor!" coming from a voice too young for such language, and something hit the back of her head.

She had turned around. The tiny blonde had still had her hands cupped around her mouth, and her big sister with long black hair had been smirking with satisfaction as she lowered her arm.

She had run a hand over her hair and felt stickiness. She then brought her hand forward and looked at it.

Chocolate. Not blood. The girl had thrown a chocolate frog.

She would always remember the way her legs had been shaking. She was sure of it. She had been responsible for the welfare of her child, and in another two years the girl would have had a wand and the knowledge to use it. It was the first time she had been afraid for the baby. They had waited so long to dare, until Tobias had the job as foreman at the factory running the big line instead of working on it.

A chocolate frog. She was lucky, would always be lucky, that it was not any of a thousand hard sweets sold in Diagon Alley.

The little brunette girl had simply stood between her sisters, eyes wide.

Mrs. Black had met Eileen's eyes, then led her girls down the street.

She had not been back to a wizarding place since. There weren't any other witches in the area, and no wizards either. No one to stir a cauldron with, no one to discuss The Daily Prophet with.

The little bundle in her lap moved, dark eyes sleepily blinking into the dim light.

"Good morning, Sev."

He yawned and she laughed as he squirmed deeper into the blanket he was wrapped in, one little hand sticking out of the folds. She ran a finger over the palm and he grabbed it. "Mummy's right here. Daddy's already left, but he'll be back tonight. It's just us right now." She picked him up, cradled him against her shoulder. "It's just us."

She kept rocking. The latest batches of potion needed to be stirred at noon. There were hours she could sit here, just her and her son...

"Your daddy's doing very important things, Sev. They couldn't run the factory without someone doing his work there. He likes providing for us. It makes him feel good to know he's giving us a roof over our heads."

She helped as much as she could with the potions, and she could probably have supported them on her own, but Tobias loved to be the provider. And he got grumpy when he wasn't. Besides, it was better for her to be the only witch among Muggles than the other way around. Exchanging money was fine once in a while, but it was horrible as a way of life.

Most of what she was making was going into a fund for Severus's schooling, to hide that she really could support them and to make sure his school robes would never need have holes in them.

"You'll be going to school someday, Sev, with lots of people like us. But for now there's just us, and there are so many things you'll need to know."

He yawned and she felt the tug of his hand in her hair.

"So many stories. Stories my mother told, and my grandmothers."

He snuggled against her.

"There was a bold wizard a long time ago, or so my mother told me. And one day, he met Death. Now we all meet him someday, and I'm hoping that day is far off in the distance for both of us, but this man had cheated him when the needed to cross a river and barely saved his life with his wand's aid. But Death is more cunning than even old Slytherin was, and he offered the man a boon.

"The man asked for an unbeatable wand, and Death handed him one made of elder.

"The man trusted the wand and challenged a bitter rival to a wizard's duel. He won, but three days later the victim's brother stole the wand from the wizard's cold dead hands."

She set her baby boy back down on her lap, tapping his nose with her finger. "Never trust a wizard with a wand of elder, my son. They are dangerous to those around them and not just to their owners."

She laughed for a second, and he looked up at her raptly. "No one makes them these days, and hardly anyone would dare use one. You'll probably never be near a wizard with an elder wand."

Her mind turned to Riddle. Not even Riddle would be insane enough to use an elder wand. He was too obsessed with his own lack of immortality, from what she'd seen him reading in the common room, and that wand was a symbol of death. A harbinger of it.

And most wizards chose tried and true woods, from local makers. The only wand she actually knew of that she'd ever seen that hadn't come from Ollivander's was Professor Dumbledore's, and despite the odd coloring it had seemed like a perfectly normal wand. A bit flashy and mysterious, but normal enough.

"But keep an eye out anyway, in case you see one. Don't trust the wizard who bears an elder wand."

Severus thrashed slightly and cooed on his mother's lap.


End file.
